


things that weren't there

by tweeker



Category: john dies at the end
Genre: Other, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-05
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-06 23:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tweeker/pseuds/tweeker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave has been taking medication, but it hasn't been stopping him from seeing things he didn't want to believe in. Himself, for example.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things that weren't there

**Author's Note:**

> pff i wrote this in january its probably never gonna be finished, i'm sorry, i'm also sorry this is the first post in this tag.

All you can hear is the blood pounding in your ears. It's dizzying, so loud you can't focus on anything else, which is exactly what you want. 

You've been having these seizures, violent ones, since you started taking the pills. 

It seems like the right thing to do. Maybe if you actually choke the damn things down dutifully enough you'll just stop seeing things. Hearing things. Feeling things crawling around at night. 

Amy's away at college and she's doing fine. She doesn't know about your thrashing insomnia. Your apnea. Your constant nausea.

  


She doesn't know about your live-in babysitter, your self-appointed nanny. She doesn't need to. You'd much rather John take his pile of video games and his mountain of dud beer tins back to his own damned house and leave you alone already.

  


He doggedly rolls awake when your alarms go off and shoves you to work and sometimes he comes to get you and you're fucking furious with him. He occasionally buys dinner for you both, and it's always microwave crap or takeout that makes you feel fat and dead. 

You've never needed him to take care of you. You're only poisoning yourself so everything shuts up.

  


You want to work your shitty job and talk about nothing on the phone with your girlfriend. Eat microwave enchiladas in your underwear and watch bad TV. You don't want to save the fucking world again.

  


You're sick of your best friend, your only friend, grilling you intensively on everything that you can't see. What's worse is when you yell at him like an asshole and he gets that sad dog look about him.

  


He fucks off, maybe eight hours tops, goes to do whatever John does, play in his band maybe, and you stomp around like a man possessed with a trash bag. Clean up all his mess, his bottles and cereal boxes and terrifying pencil sketches before unplugging all of his stupid videogames from the tv and piling it all into the hallway. Yeah, right the way out of your life forever. Time to be normal. 

 

But in the morning he's slopped across your couch again, half-awake and playing something with insanely cheery music. You eye his crumpled shirt and unfastened pants. His loose belt. 

 

He's been keeping himself up waiting for you. And he brought all of his mess back with him. Goddamnit. 

 

John, god bless him, looks almost sheepish every time. Like he's worried about you.

 

Bastard. All you can do is flop down next to him and whine until he picks a game you can both play together. 

 

It's maybe six months of cat and mouse with everyone, going to the shrink every other thursday evening to talk about how wonderful everything is now you're so sedated you can't feel proper anymore, lying through your teeth to Amy whenever you meet up, hiding your medication. All the days have blurred into one long, never-ending afternoon anyway. Wake up, meds, shave, play some video games, roll off to work, come back, beer, food, video games, John, call Amy, bed. 

 

The question throws you off at first.

 

"Do you still have the key to your shed?" 

 

There's a lump in your throat, suddenly. You're not sure how it got there. There's nothing in your shed. You've been picky with your mail recently, not opening any packages or anything handwritten. You're cautious. You don't want to know.

 

"No." 

 

It's easy to lie. You don't even glance from the screen. You're controlling an alien, pushing a giant centre of gravity. The music is awful. The colours are so bright you feel ill, yet you feel compelled to beat John's high score. 

 

Your fingers guide the joysticks effortlessly. 

 

He doesn't respond.

 

You glance over momentarily.

 

The look all over his face says he knows you're lying. 

 

"Dave." 

 

You stay silent. 

 

"Dave!" 

 

You swallow, firmly, before you pause. "What, dude?" 

 

"Your meds don't work. I know. You're still seeing them, right?"

 

You unpause. "No, John, I'm on anti-psychotics. I don't see anything." 

 

"What about them?"

 

You follow his gaze to the corner of the room. Your alien crashes into a duck, and you sink to the bottom of a pond. Oh, fuck. 

 

Of course you're seeing the tendrils of darkness. Of course they're whispering your name. They were always there. 

 

And then you're on the floor, choking on your tongue, vision blurring right out of focus, heart and lungs refusing to work in sync. 

 

Awesome. 

 

It takes John a few minutes to get up and bleat some stupid questions at you. He's asking about hospital and pruh-scrip-shons and wiff-drohl and ay-mee and these are all enormous words you can't process while you choke on the air, desperate for air you just can't get at. 

 

Then there's something decent and solid on your face, and it's his hand, no it's not, there's something else there and 

 

You guess you pass out, because the next time you can process thought you're flopped at an awkward angle across your bed, blanket draped awkwardly over you. Your shirt is unbuttoned but still on. You can just about make out voices from downstairs.

 

One voice, one artificial.

 

John and someone on speakerphone. A girl, crying. 

 

You pinch the bridge of your nose and everything aches. You're so tired. It's not worth it. You throw the lamp at your door, trying to close it that half-inch that is shining a massive chunk of second-hand hallway light into your chamber, but it misses and rolls around in some laundry instead.

 

You give up and go back to sleep. 

 

~

 

"Dave."

 

There's something warm and smelling of beer pretty much on top of you, weighting down one side of the bed and pulling the covers away. You groan at it unenthusiastically and rub your eyes. It's light. Fuck. 

 

"Dave." 

 

You groan again, but it's not enough to shift it. Damn.

 

"Dave." 

 

You can't reply, let alone in english. Your phone tells you that it's 5am. No wonder your mind is sewage. 

 

"Dave." 

 

You  _groo_ once more, hoping that it'll be successfully translated as 'john get the fuck out of my room'.

 

"Dave." 

 

Well, so much for that. 

 

“Dave, there's somebody in your kitchen. Someone I didn't let in. They said they needed to speak to you.”

 

You grunt and hide your face in your hands. Your stubble is so sharp it catches on the tracks of your palm. You're clammy. You don't care.

 

“Dave they set a bunch of shit on fire but not really, anyway its kind of important you move.”

 

You move your tongue around your mouth and try to form a coherent argument.

 

“Fuck you, John.”


End file.
